06 January 2017 - Daily Current Affairs
Banking & Finance
RBI Introduces Rs 10 banknote in Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will shortly issue new banknotes in Rs.10 denomination in the Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series, bearing signature of Dr Urjit R. Patel, Governor, RBI.
- The new denomination has a motif of Sun Temple, Konark on the reverse and the base colour of the note, Chocolate Brown.
- The dimension of the banknote will be 63 mm x 123 mm.
- All the banknotes in the denomination of Rs 10/- issued by the Reserve Bank in the earlier series will continue to be legal tender.
Note: In 2005, the last change in design in the old Rs 10 note was made by the RBI.
TIHCL gets RBI nod to operate as NBFC
- The Telangana Industrial Health Clinic Ltd (TIHCL) has got RBI clearance to register and function as a non-banking finance company (NBFC).
- TIHCL will be the first state promoted and co-financing NBFC.
- It had won the SKOCH Platinum Award in Sep 2017 under the smart governance category in the MSME segment.
- Telangana launches India’s 1st co-financing NBFC for MSMEs.
GDP growth during current fiscal to be 6.5%: Govt
- According to the Chief Statistician T C A Anant on the first Advance Estimates of National Income 2017-18, the Growth in GDP during 2017-18 has been estimated at 6. 5% as compared to 7.1% in 2016-17.
- Agriculture, forestry, and fishing is likely to slow to 2.1% in the current fiscal from 4.9% in the preceding year.
- The growth rate in per capita income is estimated at 5.3% during 2017-18, as against 5.7% in the previous year.
- The growth in the manufacturing sector is expected to decelerate to 4.6% this fiscal, (7.9 % in 2016-17).
- The data shows, the per capita income in real terms (at 2011-12 prices) during 2017-18 is likely to attain a level of `86660 as compared to `82269 for the year 2016-17.
Note: GER is a statistical measure for determining the number of students enrolled in undergraduate, postgraduate and research level studies within the country and is expressed as a percentage of the population.
Income Tax Department launches online chat service
- The Income Tax (IT) Department has launched an online chat service on its national website ‘incometaxindia.gov.in’, aimed at facilitating the taxpayers resolve their queries.
- A customer support executive having expertise in tax-related matters helps the users in resolving their queries online.
- The facility is available on all working days from Monday to Friday between 10 AM and 6 PM.
Note: The module can also be accessed through a mobile application called ‘AayakarSetu’ on Android phone.
National Affairs
World Book Fair begins in national capital
- The Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar has inaugurated the nine-day World Book fair at Pragati Maidan New Delhi.
- Environment issues like climate change, global warming, and water pollution will be the main theme for this year's Fair.
- Publishers from 40 countries of the world are participating in the book fair and More than 1,500 stalls have been installed by about 800 publishers.
- Apart from this, all books related to autobiography, memoirs, travelogue, creative literature, child literature etc. will be available here.
- This time the European Union has been given the status of the guest country.
Note: The World Book Fair is organized every year by the National Book Trust and India Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO).
Atal Pension Yojana reaches subscriber base of 80 lakh
- The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority of India (PFRDA) run Atal Pension Yojana (APY) has reached a subscriber base of 80 lakh and growing at a good pace.
- Uttar Pradesh is the highest contributing state at 11.41 lakh APY subscribers, followed by Bihar and Tamil Nadu.
Note:
- APY became operational from 1st June,2015 and is available to all citizens of India in the age group of 18-40 years.
- Under the scheme, a subscriber will receive a minimum guaranteed pension of 1000 to 5000 rupees per month, depending on his contribution, from the age of 60 years.
Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana (PMVVY)
- The union Govt has launched the ‘Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana (PMVVY)’ to provide social security during old age, to protect elderly persons aged 60 and above against a future fall in their interest income due to uncertain market conditions.
- The scheme enables old age income security for senior citizens through provision of assured pension/return linked to the subscription amount based on government guarantee to Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC).
- The scheme provides an assured return of 8% per annum for 10 years.
- The scheme is open for subscription till 3rd May 2018.
National Appointment
T S Tirumurti appointed economic relations secretary
- The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has been appointed T S Tirumurti (1985-batch officers of Indian Foreign Service) as the Secretary (Economic Relations) in the External Affairs Ministry.
- Currently, Mr. Tirumurti is India's High Commissioner of Kuala Lumpur.
- He will replace Vijay Keshav Gokhale (recently named as the Foreign Secretary).
Science & Defence
NASA to launch two missions to explore the nearest space
- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency (NASA) has announced to launch two missions (GOLD Mission and ICON mission) to explore the little-understood area of 96 km above Earth’s surface.
- The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) about 35,398 km above the planet’s surface mission will be launched in January 2018.
- The Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) low-Earth orbit, at 560 km above Earth,will be launched later this year.
- GOLD and ICON will team up to explore the ionosphere, a boundary area between Earth and the space where particles have been cooked into a sea of electrically-charged electrons and ions by the Sun’s radiation.
- One of the missions’ goals is to measure how upper atmosphere changes in response to hurricanes and geomagnetic storms.